Healthy Snack Ideas
Trying to have a healthy balance to your lifestyle and a healthy balance tp your food is tough at the best times, not to mention during a coronavirus pandemic.
As a lot of people around the world are either losing their jobs or working from home, 2 things happen:
- Food is more readily available. When you are at work you are in a routine, maybe you have prepped the night before and you are super organised. At home and out of routine, boredom and “lockdown” syndrome can set it and you start thinking to yourself “sure I’ll just have one” or when you know there is something devilishly tasty in the cupboard over there and it starts calling your name until you give in and eat it. Temptation is not your friend in these situations
- Distractions. At home sometimes there is too much going on around you for you to be able to concentrate. With child care facilities closed as well, parents have kids hanging off them 24/7 and don’t forget about our furry friends. Dog sitters and day care drop offs are closed and it’s literally trying to keep a caged animal entertained and not tear up the furniture – the dogs can be bad too! With all this going on and the best will in the world we can neglect that bit of extra prep and turn to some things that are less than healthy as a snack.
This video was orginally recorded live on our facebook page and we show you exactly how to prepare some easy to follow snack options and the calories in them to hope you stay in shape or even lose some extra fat during these uncertain times.
If you have read some of our recent blog posts particularly the one we covered on whether or not there is such a thing as too much fruit, it’s all about the calories firstly but also the quality of the calories and controling the release of sugar in the blood stream to prevent spikes in the blood sugar and improve insulin sensitivity.
Let’s take a look at some easy prep healthy snack options, remember when choosing a sback option aim for 200kcal or less:
- Yogurt/Mixed Berries/Flaxseeds – 1 cup of mixed berries 70 kcal. 73g of organic yogurt, we used blueberry flavour 100 kcal and 6g of seeds is 30 kcal, Total 200calories. The reason we add the seeds is to help offset the natural sugars from the fruit and yogurt by adding in some extra protein
- A peice of fruit – the average pieces of fruit such as an apple, orange, banana are approximately 100 to 110 calories. 200 calories is not a target it’s the limit for the snack option so a piece of fruit twice per day might be enough as your snack
- Apple and peanut butter – like we were saying as option number 2, an average apple on its own is 100 calories so we want to add enough peanut butter to bring it to 200 calories. So we are going to use 15g of peanut butter which (according to the tub) is 96 calories. So just pop this into a little pot or a plate and spread it on your chopped apple, it tastes amazing!
- Tuna and crisp bread – half tin of tuna give us about 160 calories. one crisp bread is 20 calories, so if you spread half the tin over 2 crisp breads it gives you 200 calories. If you find that very bland or dry, try adding some light mayo, half a tablespoon is approximately 20 calories. You can read more on adding the likes of mayonnaise to meals or snacks in another blog post we did on watching out for the sneaky calories. Click here to take a read
- Nuts – nuts are a great snack option. They are a source of healthy fats and protein but are also high in calories so it’s important we understand where to cut the line of snacking. Just 25g of almond nuts is 157 calories
- Protein shake – a lot of people can struggle to get in enough protein and when protein is the buildings blocks of our body it’s important that we hit those minimum requirements of 0.8g to 1.0g of protein per kg of bodyweught. In a good quality protein just 30g of protein powder gives you 24g or more of protein but only costs you about 120 calories so it’s a great option as a light snack
- Hard bolied eggs and crisp bread – Take two hardboiled eggs and slice them over 2 crispbreads. An egg is approximately 80 calories and like above a crispbread is 20 calories, so each slice contains 100 calories or 200 total.
By preparing your snack options in advance or even just having the ingredients bought as part of your weekly shop you are quickly able to make healthy snack options on the go and keep your waistline in check.
